


This Ain't A Party (Get Off The Dance Floor)

by Fontainebleau



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: M/M, Self-Deception for Days, more unresolved sexual tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25003021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/pseuds/Fontainebleau
Summary: Thing is, Frank can’t exactly hide from him. Not with Gerard’s shitty band up on stage in a red-eye rave or a Zone 2 party any night they can, name on the radio and scribbled fliers slapped onto the gas station wall. He’s got to be waiting for the whistle of the bomb overhead, and Poison’s more than happy to let him stew over it.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way, Frank Iero/Party Poison, Party Poison/Gerard Way
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	1. This Ain't A Party (Get Off The Dance Floor)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [He Took It Out On Me (I Took It Readily)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/285001) by [dear_monday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday). 



> This fic was inspired by the amazing series [A Kiss With A Fist](https://archiveofourown.org/series/12651) by dear_monday, and follows directly after _He Took It Out On Me (I Took It Readily)_ ; a huge thank-you to dear_monday for letting me in to play. The story won't make much sense unless you've read the two original fics, which you won't regret.

Thing is, Frank can’t exactly hide from him. Not with Gerard’s shitty band up on stage in a red-eye rave or a Zone 2 party any night they can, name on the radio and scribbled fliers slapped onto the gas station wall. He’s got to be waiting for the whistle of the bomb overhead, and Poison’s more than happy to let him stew over it while he strings out an argument with Kobra about his pathetically inadequate shooting and helps Jet tweak up the Am; then there’s the sudden white-hot panic of a firefight and at the end of it they’re all still standing, holstering their blasters and picking over the bodies for a sweet stash of tradeable commodities. The carbons net them two new tyres plus a vinyl that Jet sticks up on a shelf like he’s thinks it’s sacred, and it keeps the diner in real liquor and stims for a week. By the time Poison surfaces again he can almost taste Frank’s hope, dry and shrivelled as the flier for last month’s rave, that maybe, just maybe, Poison’s going to let it lie.

It’s Pony tips him back into it, once the bottles are empty and everyone’s looking for something to do: Ghoul’s into some new go-boom project that he swears needs the level of tech that starts its life in a BL/ind clean room and Pony’s got a contact that can leak it through the Lobby in return for a few unspecified favours, so when Ghoul starts waving the bill for the show at the Beretta under his nose it’s all the temptation Poison needs. 

The diner’s been frying all day in a simmering heat, weird sparking flashes all round the horizon, and the sweat’s already pooled at Poison’s back as he waits at the wheel of the Am for Ghoul and the others to pile in. Kobra kicks the back of his seat. ‘Ready for the show?’

‘Baby, we’re the show.’ Ghoul’s giggle says he’s already high, and Poison hits the gas to take them gunning off through the hot wind and dust, the hum buzzing under his skin gritty as sand.

Gila Monster’s the king of the party scene, has been longer than Poison’s been around, and the Beretta’s set up in a lot of places, a cleaned-out bunker in Zone 4 for a while and after that a derelict Zone 2 research station; but wherever it is it’s always the same, an identikit roster of loud shitty bands, crashqueens swilling down the kind of alcohol that strips the enamel off your teeth and partying like the joint’s rigged to blow while Gila watches squat and impassive from behind the bar. Right now it’s in Zone 1, practically on Bat City’s doorstep, and the crowd’s a depressing mix of try-hard juvies and baby zonerunners: Poison’s slumming it just walking through the door, but Gila’s willing to make it worth a desert celebrity’s while with a shot of the good stuff from under the counter and a handful of crystal. By the time Poison turns his attention to the stage he’s just in time - Frank’s up there already, ink on show under a tattered leather jacket, coaxing a wild-eyed, half-wasted Gerard up to the microphone. 

No need to rush: Poison leans on the bar while Frank futzes around with his guitar and Gerard hangs onto him and mutters in his ear: then they hit the static and Gerard slams into action like a force of nature. He’s shiny, Poison admits, with his floppy hair and bugged-out eyes, screaming it out like he really means it and the motorbabies certainly think so, fists pumping to the message, _fuck BL/Ind, fuck control, freedom, hope…_ Poison throws back the last of his drink, but though the liquor’s good it sits sour in the back of his throat. _Like preaching from a stage ever made a difference_.

Gerard falls to his knees and wails, raking a hand down his face, and Frank thrashes away at his guitar; he looks fucking _edible_ up there, head bowed in concentration, inked-up skin shiny with sweat. Truth to tell, Poison’s starting to feel a little left out; past time he upped the ante here. Even in a crowd like this no one stands in the way of the most recognisable guy in the room, and Poison settles front and left under the neons where Frank can’t fail to see him, mask pushed back. Frank raises his head, milking it from the crowd as he plays, arm pumping furiously – then the guitar shatters into a wild squall of feedback. The skinny bassist yells something and Frank picks up the rhythm again, but the stop-start is enough to rile Gerard who comes strutting over to throw an arm round Frank’s neck and hiss something vicious in his ear. Poison flicks him a little salute: fuck’s sake, he might as well have his bleeding heart tattooed there on his chest too, flay himself open for the world to see. _Love’s a bitch, Frankie_. 

Poison grins wide, gaze flicking deliberately from Frank to Gerard and back, and Frank’s snarl as he shoves Gerard away is a thing of beauty. He’s fucked and he knows it: he turns his back on the audience, ripping into the songs, but the music lurches and slips and before long Gerard has lost it, pushing at Frank and yelling inaudibly in his face. And that’s his problem, isn’t it – Frank could knock him cold, Poison’s been on the end of his fists often enough to know, but he won’t, he just takes it, letting Gerard scuffle ineffectually in what he must think is a fight. The crowd lap it up, surging forward, but Poison doesn’t stay to see the end.

.

He’s along from the side door, the bricks breathing heat at his back, when Frank comes barrelling out. ‘Hey, man,’ calls someone from inside, but Frank hunches into his jacket. ‘Gotta blow.’ 

Poison uncoils himself and steps into the light. ‘Honey, I thought you’d never ask.’ 

‘Mother _fucker_ ,’ hisses Frank, just as his bandmates come piling out after him, stumbling to a halt in the doorway. 

‘I’ve missed you, motorbaby,’ Poison purrs, running a finger up his lapel; Frank slaps his hand away, but he’s looking behind Poison’s shoulder to Gerard; he’s out of cards to play and his expression says as much. Poison leans in: they’re starting to draw a crowd and that’s just how he likes it. ‘No sugar for me tonight?’ Frank tenses like he’ll cut and run, but Poison knows just where to press. Without the posturing stage persona Gerard looks young again, nervous – fuck, he looks _betrayed_. Poison tilts his head. ‘Shouldn’t have been playing favorites all this time, should I? Plenty to go round--’ 

Easy in every way, Frank’s hand jerks on his collar and Poison spins round grinning. ‘Now you want it.’ He goes in low, all that bare flesh so tempting, and his punch sinks solid into Frank’s stomach; Frank doubles up around it, but count on him for a dirty fighter and his head comes snapping up into Poison’s face, the explosion of pain as harsh and bright as the desert sun. 

Poison reels back, one hand to the warm trickle that runs from his nose as his arm shoots out to wrap around Gerard’s neck and drag him in. Gerard smells rank, old sweat and cigarettes and a musk of anger and fear, and in Frank’s face Poison sees what he must see in the washed-out neon – the two of them cheek to cheek, black hair and red, wearing the same face. ‘Frankie just needs to let it out,’ he confides to Gerard, bloody fingers pressing tenderly to his pale jaw. ‘He fucks like an animal, you’ll enjoy it.’ For a split second Gerard stares into his eyes, blindsided, then he lurches, snapping out of his stasis to shove Poison off-balance just as Frank launches himself with a growl. 

Poison goes with it, the two of them rolling and kicking in a vicious embrace. Frank gets his teeth into Poison’s collarbone and Poison laughs high and wild, snapping a fist across Frank’s face to split his lip and getting him pinned under his knees. Frank bucks under him, snarling, and maybe Poison does understand Gerard after all – nothing like an audience to spice things up. The grind is too much of a distraction: he’s raised a fist when a stunning blow across his back sends him sprawling and he comes up shaking his head to see that the other guitarist, the shaggy-haired one, has finally grown a pair, hefting his guitar by the neck. ‘Got backup?’ he asks Frank as he staggers to his feet. As fucking if – Gerard’s still staring at Frank wide-eyed and the twiggy bass player’s hiding behind him. 

Poison stays down, inching backwards while Frank and the hairy guy close in with what they imagine is menace: then Ghoul pops up to leer at him over hairy guy’s shoulder. ‘Playing with your food again?’ He brings both fists down on the guitarist’s back with brutal efficiency as Kobra casually chops out Frank’s knee from behind. 

Poison clasps the hand Ghoul offers to swing himself upright, stepping over Frank. ‘Lost my appetite.’ 

Kobra eyes him irritably. ‘Drawn enough attention to yourself?’ 

Poison snaps the mask back on. ‘Never,’ and he throws an arm over Ghoul’s shoulder as they stroll away from the recriminations that erupt behind them. 

Pony’s leaning on the hood of the Am examining their nails. ‘Got what you came for?’ Poison asks belatedly, and Pony jerks a thumb to the boxes on the back seat. 

‘Two bad babies to light up the sky.’ Ghoul climbs into the back with him, hooking a bottle out of his jacket and Poison takes a swill, winces, then sloshes a handful under his nose, dripping down sour and coppery. ‘How ‘bout you?’ There’s something a little too knowing in Ghoul’s gaze, and when Poison doesn’t answer Kobra hits the radio to let the DJ fill the silence.

_Time to vanish in the heat-haze, killjoys, and as you race into the shimmer, just remember – out here in the desert however deep you dig, all you’ll find is dust._

\--

When he rolls out of the Am at the diner Poison’s started to stiffen up, and after he’s helped Ghoul take the crates through he passes on the company, swipes a bottle from the stash that Kobra thinks he hid and treads upstairs in the dark. The top floor’s stifling: he sheds his jacket, thinks briefly about seeing to his ribs, then grabs the bottle again and goes out again to the corridor. He stands on the broken chair to push the hatch open, sets the bottle carefully onto the cracked asphalt of the roof, then hauls himself up with a grunt.

There’s finally a breeze to whip his hair as he scuffs across to the edge and lowers himself to sit. Under his feet orange light spills out through the cracked blinds and a background of voices against the thump of music, but up here it’s just him and the black of the desert night. He takes a long pull at the bottle and lets the stillness slide over him. Hide from the darkness, that’s what they say, all the zonerunners desperate to light it up with strobes and flames, but Poison’s seen enough to know that when death comes it comes like a whiteout, blinding and unavoidable. There’s nothing out there in the night he should be afraid of.

He drinks and he waits and in the end it comes, first a tiny light juddering on and off in the distance, growing slowly brighter until it carries with it the unmistakable drone of an engine. It labors closer, grinding and unhealthy, to pull up out of sight at the back of the diner: the engine coughs to silence and the lights go out, but for a long time no one gets out. Poison can feel the beat of reluctance, but he’s too tired to care. _Going to have to work for it, baby._

Eventually there’s the slam of a door, a knock below and a muffled exchange; Poison gets on his feet again as metal scrapes open and shut. Through the open hatch he hears Kobra’s shout, ‘…and tell the fucker he can pay me back double.’ 

Poison lets the figure walk under his feet, then swings through to drop down behind as his visitor reaches for the door. ‘No one home, sug—’ The figure turns, stepping back into the faint shaft of light, and Poison’s sneer dies unfinished. There on his doorstep, a trickle of his own blood still fresh on one side of his face and Poison’s dried on the other, is Gerard.


	2. Get Off The Ledge (And Drop The Knife)

Poison’s taken aback, but he musters a knowing smirk. ‘Out in the night on your lonesome?’ 

Gerard looks less wasted but more twitchy, still in his stage getup, the mockery of a black company suit as out of place in the diner as it’s possible to be. ‘I want to talk to you.’ 

Poison leans on the wall. ‘And there was I thinking you were here for the Frank special. We slap each other around, you suck my cock and I fuck you while you beg for more.’ 

Gerard’s hand strays to the split on his brow. ‘Frank already punched me.’ 

‘It’s a start,’ Poison agrees. 

Gerard shoves a hand through his ratty hair, face pale in the dim light. ‘I want—' 

Poison turns his back. ‘You don’t have the carbons for what you want from me, motorbaby.’ 

He goes back to the hatch and swings himself smoothly up to the roof again, though his ribs hate him for the show. He’s halfway back to his spot on the edge when he hears the screech of the chair below, a scrabble and a volley of indistinct swearing. _Shit_. He could just leave Gerard down there until he gets bored, but if he goes on making a racket the others will be pissed, and Poison’s been bringing his work home too much as it is. How does Gerard, so shy and disingenuous, manage to get everyone dancing to his tune? Cursing himself, Poison goes back to grab Gerard’s bicep, fingers biting in as he hauls him floundering up and dumps him onto the asphalt; then he walks away, back to his bottle and the velvet dark.

There’s a shuffle as Gerard gets up and a pause as he takes in the surroundings, then steps come crunching across the gritty surface. It’s been a long time since Poison let anyone come up blind behind him, especially sitting with his feet over a drop, but he’s certain Gerard wants attention more than revenge. Gerard folds himself down a little way from where Poison is sitting, scanning round curiously. He doesn’t smell any better after letting his clothes dry on him: there’s the battery-acid and sweat of the Beretta and what must be the inside of his junk-heap of a car, but underneath is something oddly familiar. 

Poison waits it out, leaning back to let the night wind cool his skin, the ends of his hair whipping against his face. Eventually Gerard says, ‘It’s not like I imagined.’ 

‘What?’ Poison takes a pull on the bottle and cradles it between his knees, ignoring Gerard’s optimistic glance. 

‘Killjoys. All the hero-worship, the masks and rayguns. _Zones aristocracy_.’ 

Despite Gerard’s tone Poison can’t fight a coil of pride. ‘Apex predators, baby. Smoke or be smoked.’ 

Gerard laughs, a bright genuine laugh that’s disconcerting. ‘Apex predators? Hiding out in a shack full of junk and dust, living on dogfood and stolen batteries?’ 

It stings, like the punch that got in under his guard; Poison stares at him, sitting with his feet swinging in mid-air, until Gerard shifts uneasily. ‘You ever been in a clap? Not a hairpulling contest like tonight, a real firefight? Ever killed a Drac? Seen your friends go down and buried their bodies?’ 

Gerard hunches, face turned back to the dark. ‘You know I haven’t.’ 

‘Then feel free to keep your dumb-fuck opinions to yourself.’ 

For a minute he thinks Gerard is going to let it go, but no. ‘Fights, raids, all the heroics, but there are always more Dracs, aren’t there? How much difference does it make, to BL/ind, to the city?’ 

Jesus Christ. Is this why he’s here, like Poison is some kind of oracle he needs to show him the truth? ‘And you said we killjoys had a messiah-complex. Take it from me, sugar, shouting from a stage has never changed a thing. The juvies and crashqueens, they’ll sing along with you until their throats bleed and they’ll mean it, right up until they pass out in a puddle of puke.’ 

Gerard’s turned to face him before Poison’s finished, alight with conviction. ‘The passion, the anger – it’s real, when I’m up there I can taste it. If you could trap it, target it…’ 

Does Poison’s ever remember being so young and dumb? ‘Think you’re the first to want to lead the crusade, set the city alight? Give it a year or two and you’ll walk away, and it’ll be someone younger and just as disposable up there, yelling the exact same line. Only lesson anyone learns is taught with a raygun.’ 

‘And that’s all you have to offer? Running and killing?’ He’s searching Poison’s face like there’s something hidden there; Poison bares his teeth. 

‘Yeah, well, Frank never came out here for the philosophy.’ Gerard’s expression is unreadable, but his hand comes up, inching closer, and Poison’s skin prickles. He snaps to his feet, tipping Gerard off-balance. ‘Run home, motorbaby. Well’s dry.’

He swipes the bottle up and stalks back to the hatch: if he’s not going to finish it he might as well give what’s left back to Kobra. He thumps down into the corridor and along to the head of the stairs, the conversation from below floating up to greet him. 

‘…weird shit, man. Kobra would, though.’ 

‘Fuck yeah! I could find a whole bunch of us and we’d make a week of it.’ 

‘A whole bunch of Kobras?’ Jet sounds genuinely disturbed but Pony snorts. 

‘One mouthy little shit’s more than enough.’ 

‘What about you, Pony?’ Kobra challenges. ‘Would you fuck your clone?’ 

Poison can just see their lazy stretch, all long limbs and polka dots. ‘Situation couldn’t arise: I’m the one and only.’ 

Poison has to crack a smile along with the laughter. He should be down there with them, not up with Gerard _bonding_ or whatever it was he’s trying to do. This is the gang who have his back, his family – the spider’s on the hood for a reason. Fuck if he knows how he’s got so deep into this other shit, first with Frank and now letting Gerard and his weird-ass worldview into his head. Well, he can take his piece-of-shit car and crawl back to Zone 1 and Frank’s waiting arms. 

He starts down the stairs, but before he reaches the bottom he almost trips over a figure hunched invisible in the gloom. ‘You trying to break my neck?’ 

Ghoul twists round to squint up at him, and there’s no answering amusement on his face. ‘Kid here for the night? Guess you lowered your price after all.’ 

Poison’s too tired for this right now. ‘Stay the fuck out of it.’ He goes to step round him but Ghoul hitches to his feet. 

‘Wish I could.’ He’s not often angry but he’s in Poison’s face now. ‘Is there some part of _hideout_ that’s not compiling with you? We’ve got a plan, we’re going to make this one count, and you’re letting teen band zonerunners beat a path to our door to get some crotch action.’ 

Poison hates that he’s right and the deflection comes out as reflex. ‘What can I say, I’m irresistible.’ 

Ghoul shoves a finger into his chest. ‘It’s not a game. You’re distracted, and distracted ends one way, with us all ghosted.’ 

‘I don’t get distracted.’ 

‘Not what I’m seeing.’ Ghoul turns away with a hiss of frustration, but Poison grabs his shoulder. 

‘You saw how it went down tonight. This is just …a loose end.’ 

‘A loose end.’ 

Ghoul wants to believe him, Poison can tell; he hands him the bottle. ‘Give this to Kobra while I clean up.’ 

‘He’s been hoarding?’ The diversion’s a truce, for the moment: Ghoul takes the bottle and heads down, the radio fuzzing in to follow Poison back upstairs. 

_Storm’s nearly on us, tumbleweeds, time to pull the plug and run for cover while you still can. You know the radiation’s going to get you one way or another, but at least the fallout will light your way home._

The lantern’s lit in his room and the door ajar: Poison shoves it open to see Gerard fiddling with something on the table, his back turned. ‘Get out,’ Poison tells him curtly; he hitches up a foot and starts unbuckling his boots, waiting for him to leave. 

Gerard moves obediently towards the door, but stops at Poison’s back, close enough that Poison can feel his breath on the back of his neck. ‘We’re not done.’ 

Poison straightens. ‘Last warning, moth-‘ Of all the things he’s expecting, this isn’t it, the brush of a hand through his knotted hair and the ghost of dry lips against his skin. 

He has the gun out of his holster and under Gerard’s ribs in the second it takes him to turn, but what he sees freezes him: his own yellow mask under a tangle of black hair and a mouth curved in his own sly grin. They’re exactly of a height, eye to eye, Gerard’s chin tilted challengingly; it ought to be laughable, a worn-out joke, but right now it’s queasy and creepy and way too hot. He can’t look away, can’t stop the treacherous hand that moves to trace Gerard’s jaw. ‘You’re so _pretty_ , motorbaby,’ he breathes, and the cocky smile that answers him goes right to his bones. 

‘Like me when I’m you?’ He’d pictured Gerard nervous, as unsure of himself as that first night outside the party, but now he takes a fistful of Poison’s hair and yanks it back while his other hand slips under Poison’s shirt to dig into the bruise on his back. Poison can’t help the sound that chokes out of him, but he stifles it against Gerard’s neck, the skin salt and gritty under his tongue, setting his teeth to the spot under his jaw that he knows will make him shiver and curse. 

He’s used to taking who and what he wants, to coming out on top, but the lure of this is different: it’s a sinking sand, nowhere to find a purchase and every movement dragging him deeper. It’s like Gerard has a hotwire to the pleasure center in his brain: two grimy fingers slide into Poison’s mouth and a hand down his pants, and before he knows it he’s wrenching Gerard down onto the mattress and rucking up his shirt to mark up his own unscarred flesh, hearing his own voice gasp ragged when he twists his wrist just so. It turns him inside out, his sense of self bleeding away as someone smiles and cracks a hand down hard, someone kisses slow and soft, someone groans and cries out for more, and the stifling air grows thick and musky around them. 

Time loops and stutters: a bang on the door seems to come from far away, drowned out by the hoarse breaths at his ear, and later an engine roars to life, the glare of the headlights cutting across the room to illuminate their tangled limbs on the dirty sheets before the darkness swallows them again. 

\--

Morning, too bright and too soon, brings him struggling up from the fever dream of the night: Poison wakes alone, the taste of Gerard’s greasy hair still faint in his mouth. The storm’s not broken, the air thick and heavy; from outside there comes the sudden choke and catch of an engine and a cheerful shout as the hood thunks closed. Poison shrugs on his undershirt and jeans; Gerard’s stained black jacket is still lying on the floor and he kicks it aside to open the door. 

He clatters downstairs to find Kobra the only one in the diner, sitting at the table tapping a screen, the surface in front of him covered with wires and tiny components. Under his assessing stare Poison has to stop himself from rubbing his neck self-consciously. ‘You did,’ snickers Kobra, and he even looks slightly impressed. ‘Ghoul owes me.’ 

_Ghoul_. That’s a problem Poison will need to deal with, but right now it’ll have to stay on the back burner: he pushes through the front door, squinting against the harsh sunlight, to see that Gerard’s car is no more than a trail of dust heading for the horizon. Jet is standing looking after it, goggles pushed up into his hair; he turns to Poison with his normal good nature. ‘Transmission was wrecked.’ He drops the spanner he’s holding back into the toolbox at his feet. ‘Why do kids have to treat their cars like junk?’ 

‘Shouldn’t have done him any favors,’ says Poison sourly; his nose and throat are itching from the dust and he can feel the radiation starting to fry his bare arms. ‘Fucker took my jacket.’


	3. Salute The Dead (And Lead The Fight)

Poison’s not going to go chasing his Dead Peg jacket – Gerard’s welcome to it, he can play dress-up with Frank or whatever other freaky thing he wants it for. It’s not as if new threads are hard to find, and when he sees himself in the windshield of the Am in a jacket as obnoxiously bright and red as his hair he thinks he looks pretty damn shiny. His reflection checks him out with a one-sided grin. _Don’t win by standing still_. 

That’s the easy part: fuck if Poison knows how the rest of it has got so out of hand. It shouldn’t make any difference who’s in his bed: hell, it didn’t that time Ghoul got tight with his hotwire princess, nor when Poison was with Verde, for all the good that was. But Ghoul’s been avoiding him, and in a place as small as theirs that’s everyone’s problem; Jet is twitchy, which isn’t like him, and Kobra is grating on Poison’s every last nerve, which is. Worst of all, Gerard’s got into his head as well as his pants – when he looks at the diner Poison can’t help the words rattling round in his brain, _not like I imagined_. It never bothered him before that everything’s patched-together and scavenged up, a stop on the way to somewhere else, but now he finds himself wondering, _where_?

Normally when he feels like this he takes off, finds someone to work out his restlessness and ill-temper on, but that’s come home to roost more than he’d like, so he lies low, hauling water and practicing target shooting until he thinks he’ll die of boredom. Something’s got to give and he knows where he needs to start, though it’s hard enough just finding Ghoul these days: he and Kobra are neck-deep in the electronics for the bomb, and when they’re not haring off somewhere with a bunch of test charges Ghoul’s headed out in the other direction to hang at the radio station. 

In the end he has to ask Kobra nicely, a painful process in itself, but the next time Ghoul appears with his crates of wires and dials Poison’s ready in the front seat, feet on the dash. The twitch of uncertainty on Ghoul’s face when he sees him stings, but Poison flashes him a winning smile. ‘Too late, motherfucker, Kobra sold you out.’ 

Ghoul frowns. ‘He tell you what we’re doing?’ 

‘Prime. Detonate. Boom.’ Poison gestures along with the words. ‘I’m on board.’ 

Ghoul snorts, but he stows the crates and slides in behind the wheel. ‘Your call.’ He guns the engine and takes them off in a spray of grit, Poison’s lethargy lifting instantly as they hit what’s barely a road out to the edge of Zone 6. Ghoul always drives like a crazy motherfuck and his old wild grin is back on his face as they go fishtailing through the dunes, sand fountaining under the tires.

When they hit the waste zones the Am comes slithering to a stop apparently at random: they’re way out in the ass-end of nowhere, nothing to see except for spiny agaves shimmering in the heat. Poison grabs his goggles and shakes out his hair in the hot wind, leaning on the door while Ghoul gets out the crates. ‘You ever wonder what’s out there?’ he asks suddenly. 

‘Where?’ Ghoul’s got his arms full and a tangle of wire between his teeth. 

‘There.’ Poison jerks his head to the empty horizon. ‘If you keep going, just drive... way BL/ind tell it, there’s nothing left, but d’you reckon it’s true?’ 

Ghoul looks at him over the top of his bandanna, amused. ‘You caught a dose of thinking?’ He taps the last crate impatiently with his boot, and Poison picks it up and follows him along between the sandhills. 

‘What if there are other cities somewhere, other Zones?’ he insists. ‘Places where everyone’s getting their own shit together?’ 

Ghoul turns round, walking backwards like he doesn’t care that he’s carrying an boxful of explosives. ‘I think if you just kept driving you’d run out of gas, and then you’d run out of water, and then you’d die.’

He leads the way to a bare patch among the dunes, sets down the crates and drops to his knees to start digging in the loose earth. Poison watches as he extracts the explosives and carefully beds them in, then reaches for a flat disc trailing wires. ‘Rocker plate,’ he explains, as though he can hear the question. ‘Trips when it’s disturbed.’ It’s a fiddly business, connecting the wires to the plate: Ghoul mutters to himself, absorbed, and Poison shifts restlessly behind him. Ground must be heavy with rads this far out, and the sun’s baking. Ghoul squints up at him, a bare-ended wire in each hand. ‘Might want to get back a ways.’ He giggles. ‘Y’know, in case I make a mistake.’ 

_Batshit crazy_. Poison beats a hasty retreat behind the nearest dune and slumps down; after a few minutes Ghoul rolls in beside him, spiking some kind of detector into the ground. Poison tenses, waiting for the detonation: eventually he squints sideways to see Ghoul’s shit-eating grin. ‘Kobra’s yanking your chain, you know that?’ He holds out a hand, flat. ‘Rocker plate’s vibration-sensitive. Bury the goods, plate on top, goes off when it’s triggered.’ 

‘By what?’ Poison half gets up to look, but Ghoul grabs his boot to drag him back. ‘Got to calibrate it. Can’t have it triggered before the Dracs arrive – needs to be just right. So we set it and we wait, and when it blows we’ve got the measure.’ 

Poison rapidly extracts the significant word. ‘Wait?’ He slumps down resentfully. ‘I’m going to fry.’ 

Ghoul checks the detector again, then fishes in his pocket. ‘Here.’ He unravels a second bandanna and passes it over, then makes himself comfortable with that same uncanny patience that lets him piece together a heap of tiny fuses and switches. ‘Wake me up if something explodes.’ 

Poison rolls his eyes. The scarf smells of chemicals and oil, and his throat’s already dry. There really is nothing out here but the hiss of sand and scour of the wind; after a while, ‘Fuck Kobra,’ he says with heartfelt feeling. 

Ghoul cracks an eye, unsympathetic. ‘Should have brought the latest _Hot Zone Ravers_ to read.’ 

Poison holds his gaze. ‘We doing this now?’ 

Ghoul’s expression doesn’t change. ‘Thought you wanted to pass the time. You seeing the small one again?’ 

‘No.’ 

Ghoul narrows his eyes. ‘You seeing the singer?’ 

‘Fuck, no,’ says Poison irritably. ‘What’s it to you anyway? And don’t give me that crap about security.’ 

For a moment he thinks Ghoul isn’t going to answer, but he seems to make up his mind. ‘Shit’s going down, you know that. Getting this set up, luring them out, blowing it – it’s not going to be a Zone 5 funfair –‘ 

‘I know.’ Poison cuts him off: it’s not a thing to talk about too loud, not out where the Witch might hear. 

‘Do you?’ Ghoul flicks at the red vinyl. ‘Is your head in the fight? When it’s not about taking your rep to the clubs and playing to an audience? When it’s a fight you might not win?’ 

Anger rises first, fierce as the radiation. He’s Party Poison – he’s the leader, the planner, the crack shot: this is his show. But if it’s Ghoul who’s asking the question, well, that’s spiky. Kobra’s his brother, Jet’s his friend, but Ghoul knows him, knows him deep. Ghoul’s the one at his back when he’s in trouble; he’s his mastermind, his hatred sharp and clear as a beacon. Poison’s almost seen him smoked more times than he cares to think about; they’ve patched up each other’s wounds and burned away the nights drinking stolen moonshine; he’s heard that hyena laugh in the thick of a firefight and around the diner’s chipped table. What’s Ghoul seen, to make him doubt? 

_Gerard. Pale Gerard who sets them all dancing to his tune._ ‘It was about them, not me.’ It’s as close as he can come to saying it. 

Ghoul raises an eyebrow. ‘You’re not the center of the universe? Who knew?’ Poison kicks him and Ghoul kicks back: Poison shoves him and Ghoul starts to laugh. ‘Is this thing ever going to go off?’ Poison complains, and right then the world picks them up and drops them back down and Poison has dirt in his hair and in his mouth and over his new jacket and Ghoul cackles until he falls over. 

Eventually he picks himself up and holds out a hand: as he hauls Poison to his feet he asks, ‘Will you come to the Mission with me?’

\--

The Mission: half ritual, half rave, and not the kind of place you go for fun. Word of it’s never got to the City – it’s a zonerunner thing, and even in Zones 1 and 2 it’s not much more than a rumor, a story about a place out on the very edge of things that might or might not be true. But the longer you stay out in the desert the more it creeps into your head, slow over time, until one night you come drifting out to where the zones bleed into the glowing wastes, and find the Mission awake and waiting. The squat adobe building is painted in swirling crazy neons, its tower fractured and empty, and the stones in the graveyard that surrounds jut like broken teeth. Day and night its roof is black with crows, yarking constantly as they flap and circle, but when it surges into life the lights and noise drive the birds away and the only two crows are the Twins. 

Tonight Crow Kurt is at the gate, ash-haired and sickly-looking behind a rough board table, dipping out a cup of _pulque_ for each seeker from the metal vat. The drink’s the entry fee, pale and frothy with an unhealthy sheen on its surface, as though Crow Miranda has whispered down one of their birds and dipped the oil from its feathers into a shining skim. Best not to ask what it’s brewed from, like it’s best not to look too closely at the white bones scattered among the tipped-over gravestones: if some kid ends up with a head full of black feathers, beak pecking away from the inside, and wanders too far to come home, well, Kurt and Miranda aren’t anyone’s friends. 

Kurt holds out the cup, the crow’s wing tattoo under his left eye stark on his bony face, and Ghoul takes it eagerly, tossing back the contents without flinching. He’s a believer; Poison’s never asked, but he suspects his faith was born from sitting and tinkering with sudden death, playing with a kid’s enthusiasm when two wires crossed wrong could blow you sky-high. 

Kurt eyes Poison, distant and incurious. ‘Been a while,’ he says, hoarse as one of his namesakes, and Poison’s skin crawls, but he takes the cup and tips it to Ghoul before he gulps the measure down, viscous and sour, coating his tongue and throat. 

A bonfire’s burning up in the graveyard, bodies milling around it to the pounding music and the patterns on the Mission’s walls dancing in the smoky glow; it could be any red-eye rave, a raucous and drug-fueled collective finger held up to authority and control: it could be, but then the flames are washed out by a sudden flare of arc-light brightness in the little barred windows of the church, and when it dies the dark bulk of the Mission seems to loom larger, black and ominous.

‘Now?’ Poison asks Ghoul. _Won’t get better with waiting_. 

‘She’s there,’ says Ghoul. Crumbs of shattered glass crunch under their boots as they follow the path to where Crow Miranda waits in the shadow.

A tattoo like her twin’s sits on the soft flesh under her right eye, but below it the skin fuses into hard plastic and her two hands glint silver-metallic; a black cable winds twice around her ankle before snaking away to the interface behind her. ‘Fun Ghoul. It’s been too long.’ The edge of her feathery black shawl brushes Poison’s hand as she folds Ghoul into an embrace and he has to brace himself not to flinch when she turns to survey him with her mismatched eyes, one dark and liquid, the other beady-bright and artificial. ‘Party Poison. You look different.’

‘New style,’ says Poison; it’s habit to cock a hip and show himself off. 

‘All red.’ Her eyes track up and down. ‘A target.’ 

Poison drifts a hand over his gun. ‘Bring the Dracs flocking.’ The words are out of his mouth before he hears them. Crow Kurt never smiles, though he could; Miranda can’t. 

She turns back to Ghoul as the lights flash again, then slowly fade. ‘You first?’ she asks and Ghoul nods; they whisper for a while, two dark heads together, then Miranda touches her lips to his face before she opens the door. A chill scent of mold and burning plastic drifts out as Ghoul steps easily forward into the dark.

Poison’s left with Miranda, and maybe the _pulque_ is starting to work because the shadows behind her seem to heave and skitter like insects. He grits his teeth and tries to focus, watching the faint light from within. After a while, ‘Close call for your brother,’ Miranda remarks conversationally. 

Kobra’s never been here, far as Poison knows. ‘He’s OK.’ 

Miranda’s laugh clicks in her throat and Poison swallows down nausea. ‘Didn’t say it had happened yet.’ Noise starts to leak out, muffled by the thick walls: Poison raises his head, listening. ‘Nervous?’ There’s nothing kind about the question, and _I’m not afraid of anything_ sits too heavy on his tongue to speak. 

The lights flash again, quicker and brighter, with a burst of garbled words and static and Poison jumps as icy fingertips brush under his shirt, cold on his skin. ‘Crows don’t care what’s on the outside.’ The whisper cuts low through the rising hum. ‘Crows know what’s underneath, blood and entrails and bone.’ Poison shudders in spite of himself. Screw Ghoul: why the hell did he agree to this? With one final flare the church goes dark and Miranda steps back. ‘Your turn.’ 

Inside the church is cavernous and clammy, its walls streaked with white; the air is close and dead, the scent of burning sweet and strong. The space all around is filled with screens, stacked high and random: flatscreen displays cannibalized from advertising kiosks, old-fashioned TVs, monitors, boxy security feeds and even a pixilated holoscreen, all strung together in a web of cabling. Some are whole, some starred or broken and all of them dark: as Poison takes his place in the center his own figure is reflected a hundred times around him, small in the empty space. 

He waits, pulse thudding loud in the silence; he doubts anyone is watching this one-man show, but he’s still proud that he doesn’t flinch when a screen suddenly fizzes into life high up to his right, bursting halfway into a car chase across the desert in violent technicolor. The Dracs lean out of the windows shooting, the lead car weaves, shots crackling in return: they’re making it, the pursuers falling behind, but just as he thinks, _Hit the gas, go,_ the car swerves and flips out of control, rolling into a burst of oily flame. 

The screen goes abruptly dark, and immediately another lights up in the corner of his vision; he swivels to see the view from a camera set high on the wall of a white room, drained of all color, where a man with a shaved head in white clothes lies shivering in the corner. He steps closer, the shape of the body eerily familiar, but the image fuzzes out as two more dance to life: at his feet Jet and Kobra are unmistakable, back to back in a firefight, guns raised grimly against an advancing army. 

_No_ , he whispers as they press together, defying the inevitable, but as he watches they stumble and fall in a hail of shots. He tears his gaze away to confront the other - a single face, pale and smooth, staring into his eyes close as a lover: he knows it, recognizes the sneer of contempt as the image strobes into blinding white. 

Now screen after screen comes alive all at once, each one tugging at his attention and wrenching at his gut: the sun at its merciless noonday height, so splittingly intense that the blue sky around it becomes black; the diner, a single figure hunched small in its dusty space – Ghoul, knuckles gripped white around a handful of masks; a man in the city in collar and tie, an obedient company drone whose drug-smooth face Poison recognizes from the mirror. 

Fast and faster they flash until he’s spinning at their center, chasing each new vision: Kobra and Ghoul fleeing across a shining plaza, slippery with blood, running and firing and falling; himself in his old jacket, hair dark over his face and his mouth open in a scream; the diner again, burnt-out and abandoned, its door slamming in the wind; a man he doesn’t want to recognize, ragged as a wavehead, radiation burns down his cheeks below the yellow mask, crouching cornered and feral. His eyes ache and his head rings with it: all his futures, shuffled and dealt in front of him, and none of them a winning hand. 

He can’t stop turning, following the flickering scenes until they merge into a single story, the end that’s careering towards him head on, the certain white-out; and now all the screens are live together, a cacophony of noise and action too complex to comprehend – then in an instant all of them change, strobing in co-ordination, image after image of a spider hanging by a single thread, dark on bright, bright on dark and all around him, the light so intense it blinds him and he doesn’t know whether it’s the screens that short out or his own brain.

\--

When he wakes the scent of burning lingers, though he’s outside among the tombstones: a point of pain grinds relentlessly above his eyebrow and his belly is roiling. A hand strokes his hair and he rolls his neck gingerly to see Ghoul sitting cross-legged, a beatific look on his face. His hand slides to rest steady on Poison’s back as he forces himself to sit up. He feels flayed, stripped bare. ‘It’s all going down,’ he tells Ghoul. He knows now what Ghoul knows, that death is the fifth member of their crew, eating with them at their table, riding shotgun in the car, waiting for them in the city, slow or quick. Poison’s had it all, the admiration and the respect, the easy pickings and the free ride, and now the reckoning’s on its way. ‘Whatever we do…there’s the tab to pay.’

Ghoul’s smile doesn’t waver. ‘We’ll pay it.’ He pulls Poison close and Poison lets himself rest his aching head on Ghoul’s shoulder. ‘And we’ll make sure they go down with us.’


	4. Be A Burning Star (If It Takes All Night)

Poison’s heading for the Stair through a maze of narrow streets made narrower by jutting storefronts, pipes and stacks of garbage. A blind droid is preaching the Graffiti Bible to the empty pavement while a huddle of underdressed porn workers hustle an off-duty Scarecrow in a hotel doorway and further on a knot of teens gathered underneath a sputtering screen pass round a bottle of something cheap and vicious. The light filters down murky and humid but even so heads turn as Poison goes, a mote of screaming red, a walking fuck-you to Battery City.

 _Easy in, easy out_ , he’d told the crew; coming in here’s a risk, they all know that, but if you wear the mask you don’t duck the firefight. Now the job’s done, but still time to get pixilated if the Dracs catch up with him: time to blow this scene and Poison’s glad of it. He ought to like the Lobby, the place where BL/ind’s sterile white buildings and brain-fogging muzak give way to dilapidated blocks with daubed-up slogans, sex shows and cramped cube rentals, buzzing with a heady mix of illicit pills, underground music and the whisper of revolution, but if he’s honest it makes his skin crawl. 

The Lobby’s where everything in Battery City ends up when it’s worn out, obsolete, damaged: droids outevolved and broken, staring at the city limit they’ll never cross and praying for Destroya to save them; urban failures and outcasts clinging to the last vestiges of city life; and worst of all, the runaways and ritalin rats, the ones who think they’re getting out. Dreaming of the desert and plucking up their courage to run, waiting on their friends, waiting on their contacts, telling themselves _next week, next month, next year_ ; Poison’s the Lobbydwellers’ idol, their figurehead and inspiration, but their miasma of desperation and dying hope fills him with a horror he can’t admit. 

Everywhere he looks someone’s trying to turn a trick: _spare a carb, need some company, looking for some fun_ , a thousand grasping hands that threaten to pull him back down with them. As he threads the alleys with their hangouts and dealers he refuses to let them be familiar; when he left he sloughed off everything of who he used to be along with his name, shedding it like a skin, and he hasn’t come back to rake through the detritus. The desert’s harsh and full of danger, ready to punish the smallest mistake with the scour of radiation that strips you to the bone, but it’s a cleaner death than anyone gets in here. 

Then, across the street, as though unwelcome memory has taken solid form, Poison sees himself. Not a scarlet dye-job wannabe or a battery rat playing dress-up in a yellow mask: he’s seen that often enough, and if they didn’t try to copy him he’d be disappointed. No, this is something more uncanny: the man’s wearing Poison’s pill-and-cross tag, though the tangled hair above it is black and there’s no mask or gun; but when he lifts a hand to push his hair back it’s with Poison’s own gesture, and as he stoops to hand a flier to a pair of mashed-up droids sitting on a shred of tarp it’s unmistakably his own stance and profile. What the fuck is he doing here? What does he think he’s playing at? Poison strides across the street to wrench his doppelganger round by the shoulder. ‘What the fuck?’ 

Gerard blinks at him. ‘You.’ 

He’s all in black, the jacket sprayed to match his hair: Poison lets him go, sending him stumbling off balance. ‘Start talking, motorbaby.’ Instead Gerard holds out one of the fliers he’s clutching, covered in spiky lettering and Poison snatches it irritably. _Bleach Bouquet, ComicSans Samurai, Young Animal…_ ‘Are you insane?’ 

It certainly looks like it: Gerard’s smile is messianic, alight with conviction. ‘You were right – playing to crashqueens at Gila’s isn’t going to change anything. If we’re going to make a difference this is where we need to be.’ 

‘Only darkness can show us Destroya’s light,’ agrees the sightless droid canted against the filthy wall. 

‘Fuck’s sake.’ Poison lets the flier drop into the gutter and closes a hand on Gerard’s wrist. 

There’s no shortage of dark alleys here: he drags Gerard around the nearest corner and shoves him against the wall. ‘I should have that tag straight off you.’ 

Gerard arches an eyebrow as his shoulders hit the bricks. ‘Is this really the place?’ He’s different, not the sand brat he was; he’s put on a hint of Poison’s own swagger and shine along with the stolen jacket, and Poison doesn’t know what irks him more, the idiotic show or the treacherous heat that lies in wait just below the surface. 

He lets Gerard go. ‘Why in fuck are you so dumb that you come crawling back in here?’ 

Gerard’s face changes, the earnestness back. ‘It’s important. We’re not going to sit out there with the rest of them waiting for Mom and Dad to come home.’ 

‘We? You brought the rest of them with you?’ Of course he did, and from his unmarred looks Frank’s outbreak of tough love didn’t last long either: Gerard’s here to lead the revolution and his band stumbling blindly after him. 

Gerard rakes back his hair, the mimicry unconscious. ‘You should come and see the show.’ 

The words bring a sudden spark of memory, a dark-haired figure on a screen screaming into a microphone: everything the Mission shows you is true, but Poison shrugs off the weight of that thought. ‘Some of us are here on grown-up business, sugar.’ 

‘Shame’. A tiny knowing smile appears on Gerard’s face and Poison itches to punch off. Tell you what, though.’ He steps closer, fingertips pressing hot into the skin of Poison’s wrist and breath hot against his ear. ‘Kiss me and I’ll pass it on to Frank.’ 

When Poison pulls back they’re eye to eye and the queasy tug of attraction still there, but stepping back is its own kind of thrill. ‘Playtime’s over, motorbaby. What you got was a one-time deal.’ And if Frank’s not doing his job then Poison guesses it’s down to him after all: the crack of his hand’s not hard, but Gerard doesn’t see it coming and it snaps his head around. Poison grins. ‘You can keep the threads.’ 

Does Gerard stand and watch as Poison takes the long way down the alley? Poison treats him to a hitch of his ass just in case. As he rounds the corner a White Mariah rumbles past and he freezes: a routine sweep for salvageable droids, most likely, but it’s a reminder of how illusory the freedom of the Lobby is. If the band’s caught, and they will be, re-education’s the best they can hope for: Gerard’s powers of persuasion must be impressive, though Poison has to concede that his own better judgement wasn’t exactly proof against Gerard’s weird shit either. The wait is long enough that Gerard’s words have a chance to echo in his head. Does he have time? Barely. Is it wise? No, hanging around here drawing attention to himself isn’t wise, but drawing attention’s what Poison’s good at, not wisdom. And even a baby killjoy knows, if you take a hit, best cure is to grab the knife and return the favor.

Finding the club’s not hard: the name changed every couple of months when Poison lived here, but the old warehouse is still boarded up and scrawled-over, dripping blood-red letters announcing that it’s now the Murder Scene. There’s a line, all juvies and battery rats: Poison soaks up the ripple of surprise that follows him as he saunters to the front. The tout, all spiked-up hair and neon mesh vest, looks him up and down approvingly. ‘Cool mask, man. You look just like him.’ 

Poison doesn’t crack a smile. ‘Bet you say that to all the boys.’ 

He makes to go past, but the tout sticks out an arm. ‘Two carbons or a can. No exceptions.’ 

Poison tugs his jacket back. ‘Keep all my trade here, doll.’ At the sight of the holster the boy’s tongue darts out to lick his lips, then he shrugs and pushes aside the corrugated metal sheet that serves as a door. 

The inside’s just the same too, and as he breathes the mix of stale liquor, fried electrical connections and good old-fashioned puke the memory comes too sharp of when Poison was impressed by this place, when the burst of noise and color and rebellion seemed to open up a new world with revolution just round the corner. There’s a juvie band up on the stage now, their music choppy and discordant, and for a moment past and present seem to merge, as though if he looks too hard he’ll find himself and Kobra, skinny and desperate, among the cluster of yelling teens at their feet. But Poison never needed a leader to show him the light, did he – he’s his own creation. He shakes his head in contempt. If Gerard thinks this is the army he’s going to lead in his cause he’s sorely mistaken: rebellion’s not made from the ones who stay. 

He turns his back on the stage and follows the way he remembers down the side corridor, shoving his mask into his pocket. A dark hallway, the floor sticky under his boots, the thump of the bass – isn’t it just like old times, right down to the figure half-hidden in the shadows in a tattered leather and a cloud of smoke, waiting for his singer to show. Poison saw the blood on Gerard’s face that night, but obviously one punch was nowhere near enough to get him out of Frank’s system. 

Frank’s looking away, but at the sound of Poison’s steps he raises his head, expectant, and Poison steps up unhesitating to slide his arms around Frank’s waist. He rests his chin on Frank’s shoulder, cheek to his sweat-damp hair, and Frank sighs, flicking away his butt. ‘You have to cut it so fine? We did the soundcheck without you.’

Poison leans wordlessly in to nip at the scorpion on his neck and Frank leans back with a shiver. The Frank he knows is all teeth and fight, enraged at his own lust, but this time the kiss is easy, Frank opening up for him to taste, smoke and liquor and the honey of trust and puzzled loyalty. 

Warm as pain, soft as a bruise: Poison slides a hand under his shirt to read the ink with his fingertips, drinking him in, until Frank breaks to rest their foreheads together, eyes still closed. Poison gives it a beat, then, ‘Really can’t tell, can you?’ he whispers, and Frank’s eyes snap open to see his screaming red. ‘But then that was the point, wasn’t it?’ 

It only takes a moment for Frank to switch, snarling in fury, but Poison’s already caught him by the wrists, forcing him back. ‘Y’know, I think you’re more fun with the spice. But you just can’t bring yourself to hurt that pretty face, can you?’ 

‘Fuck you,’ Frank spits, ‘Why can’t you stay away?’ 

With his arms pinned he can’t break Poison’s hold, and Poison takes advantage of it to work a leg between his. ‘Gerard told me I should come, sugar. Wanted me to see the show.’ He rocks against Frank and smirks at the growl it earns him. ‘Did he tell you how he got that shiny tag?’ He lowers his voice to a smoky purr. ‘Do you wish you’d been there?’ 

Frank twists suddenly, breaking his grip, and goes for the punch, but Poison reads him too well: he shoves in close with his whole weight. ‘One last lesson for you, Frankie.’ 

Frank spits, hot with anger. ‘Like you can teach me anything.’ 

Poison takes his chin and digs in his fingers until Frank looks him in the eye. ‘He doesn’t care about you. He’ll take everything you give him and then he’ll lead you over the edge.’ 

Frank stills, the distant music filling the silence. ‘Is that what you came for? To save me from myself?’ He’s trying to sneer, as though there’s any going back once you’ve ripped open your chest and showed your heart. 

‘You poor dumb motherfucker.’ Poison rubs a thumb over Frank’s lips, cruelly tender. ‘None of us is getting out alive. There’s just the end.’

‘Fuck you,’ spits Frank again, but it lacks conviction. Poison lets him wrench himself free and listens as his footsteps retreat; a door opens onto a sudden blast of music which abruptly cuts off as it slams shut. Poison licks his lips: something for Gerard to come home to, and they can both remember his name. And now it’s past time he was gone.

A thin dirty rain has started to fall, the weather as leftover as everything else here; Poison cuts his way unhesitatingly through the streets, the catcalls and neons sliding off the slick scarlet of his jacket. At last he reaches the plaza where the shuttle tubes zig-zag overhead and there it is, the droids’ own stairway to heaven. Kobra will be waiting on the other side: all he has to do is make it across the line. He pauses in the shadow of a giant pillar, scanning the space between himself and the exit. It’s crawling with agents checking passes and watching for droids or running rats, and every one with an itchy trigger finger, looking to keep their kill percentages up. A genuine killjoy will set them off like a nest of desert scorpions and Poison’s pulse ticks up as the adrenaline starts to surge. 

At his feet circuit lights blink fitfully on the dismembered torso of a droid, one more dream of freedom guttering out among the garbage. As he snaps down his mask it fizzes back to brief life, its snapped cables sparking. ‘You cross the line, you die,’ it warns. 

Poison bares his teeth, an inside joke. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘you do.’ It’s the bargain he made here a lifetime ago: the end is on its way, the Mission showed him that. He saw it white, swallowing down everything else into its pitiless glare, but is it a re-education unit or the blast of a gun? The flash of a bomb or the dazzle of the sun overhead? Whatever it is, it’s coming to find him, and what else he going to do but run to meet it?

A shout goes up the moment he makes his break for it, boots thudding across the tiles of the plaza and the crowd of citizens scattering in front of him; an alarm starts to blare and rays crackle through the air as he makes it to the foot of the Stair, his reflection running red-yellow-red at his side in the plexiglass surround as he bolts upward. His back prickles, naked and exposed: they’ll shoot to kill and even as he runs he’s bracing himself for it, the electric punch of the ray that will bring him down, the shiny white tiles the last thing he sees. His pulse thuds, now, now, his heart pounds in his ears, muscles screaming with tension – then all at once he’s through and out, running over cracked earth with the kiss of hot dry air in his lungs.

The agents are still coming, the trophy kill in their sights: a shot sears a burning line of pain across his thigh, sending him stumbling, but there’s the Am, gunning up in a plume of dust with Kobra at the wheel. The car swerves and slows and Poison dives for the window, rolling in headfirst as Kobra slews the car around, tires churning the dirt, to take them speeding off. 

Poison’s sprawled over Ghoul in the back, all flailing elbows and boots. ‘Easy in, easy out?’ Ghoul giggles from underneath him. 

Poison digs in his knees to get himself rightside up. ‘Show some gratitude, motherfucker.’ He reaches into his jacket and conjures up the datacard. 

‘Your leg OK?’ Jet screws himself round in the front seat to look, 

Poison touches the bloody tear in his jeans gingerly: it’s messy but not deep. ‘Had worse.’

Kobra catches his eye in the mirror. ‘What took you so long?’ 

‘Yeah.’ Ghoul’s untied his bandana and is twisting it up into a narrow bandage. ‘We’ve been baking our asses off waiting.’ 

Poison takes it and wraps it round his injury, knotting it hard. ‘I was tying up some loose ends.’

‘What, ran into an old friend?’ 

Kobra looks skeptical and Ghoul snorts. ‘Can’t expect us to believe you have friends.’ 

Poison leans back, shaking out his hair in the gritty breeze. ‘You know it, babe, I’ve got a heart of stone.’ And they all laugh wild as the Am hits Route Guano and picks up speed, the city falling away behind. 

_Sun’s going down, cherrypops,_ says the radio, _and this wreck of a world’s got no future: we’re dancing on the edge in the gamma-rays’ last glow, and we’ll party out here in the ruins till the very end._

**Author's Note:**

> Speak to me: fontainebleau22.tumblr.com


End file.
